John Mortara

i am trying to tell you

            you can’t test the ocean

without warming it with your hand

that jupiter is a star that never happened

that reincarnation exists

            and when i grow up and die

i want to be a mountain

i am trying to tell you that black holes

hum B flat

57 octaves down

that          when a meteor strikes the moon

it rings like a bell

            i am trying to tell you sometimes

you can be too careful

that the average color

of the universe

is #FFF8E7

and they went and called it

‘cosmic latte’

i am trying to tell you this disappoints me

that sometimes i need to be left alone

i am trying to tell you

there is no mathematical possibility

for everybody to have a soulmate i’m sorry

some people fit together exactly

like they say they do

and it’s hard to explain how their atoms

will never really touch

i am trying

i am trying and this

disappoints me.

John Mortara lives and writes in North Carolina. He edits voicemailpoems.org and his poems have most recently been published in Fiddleback and Vinyl Poet.